Skip to main content

tv   CNN Presents  CNN  January 5, 2013 5:00pm-6:00pm PST

5:00 pm
>> i thought i saw a guy on a bike leading the way. and i followed that guy who was green and had a helmet on. and he led me out of the desert. everything i just told you is a story. and i've told that story -- >> it's not real? >> not at all. >> we'll see more of don's interview tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern. i'm at the cnn world headquarters in atlanta. isle seal you back here at 10:00 p.m. eastern as cnn special report, we're going to go in depth into the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl and the two high school players who are accused of being at the center of it. right now, a cnn special report begins on 25 shocking medical mistakes. stay with us.
5:01 pm
>> they missed up and did this eye and then this eye. >> hair loss? i had a perfect ring around many i head. >> and metal, deadly close to a magnet. >> mistakes are happening every day in every hospital in the country is that we're just not catching. >> it's the second or third leading cause of death in this country and for the most part, with we're silent on it. >> what you can do to not become a victim. i'm elizabeth cohen. i'll show you how to become an empowered patient. with the help of world renowned patient safety expert dr. peter pronovost, dr. otus brawley, dr.
5:02 pm
abraham varageis and more. stay tuned. this hour could save your life. >> at numb 25, baby security breach. the woman in this surveillance video, jennifer latham tells her family she's expecting a baby when really she isn't. so she decides to steal one. take a look as she changes into nursing scrubs, enters a baby's room, comes out with a bag under her arm. a baby is in that bag. the imposter nurse actually gets off the premises with the child, despite an alarm on the baby. >> the alarm went off as it was supposed to. the woman just managed to get out the door. >> the baby is gone, missing, for almost 2 1/2 hours. until a police officer spots the getaway car and pulls the baby snatcher over. >> that's a newborn you got back
5:03 pm
there. >> listen as jennifer lies to the officer telling him the baby is hers. >> you gave birth? today? >> no. yesterday. >> yesterday? >> this cop isn't buying any of it. jennifer latham is arrested and the baby is returned safely back to mom and dad by ambulance. what kind of person would want to steal a baby? >> most people who steal babies actually want that babies for hems themselves. and hospitals are a great place to get babies. since 1983 be, 130 babies have been abducted from u.s. health care facilities. make sure your eyes or a real nurse's eyes are on your baby at all times in the hospital. because every so often, a baby snatcher is eyeing them, too. at number 24, fake dpok tors. . >> i don't want to lie to you anymore, all right? i'm not a doctor, i never went to medical school. >> like amy adams character in "catch me if you can" tammy perteet thinks she married a
5:04 pm
physician. >> i would drop him off at the hospital. >> until her husband's eric pleads guilty to impersonating one. >> i was told at the time he was arrested, he and a nurse were taking a patient from the emergency room into the intensive care unit. >> the hospital says he escapes notice by wearing scrubs and a real doctor's i.d. badge. >> anyone who fakes being a medical doctor is fundment tally a con artist or a scammer. incredible medical mistakes have been made by these fake physicians. >> this man, arthur copes also turns out not to be a doctor. >> he advertised extensively on websites saying that he could straighten out the most crooked of spines. >> sarafina sees the ads. she thinks he can correct her skoal yost sis. she wears his brace for six months and her curves get worse. >> extremely worse and i'm in
5:05 pm
extreme amount of pain. >> the people who will fall for these fake doctors usually are extremely vulnerable. it is that persona, ability to gain the patient's trust, that respect, that white coat and that ability to smile and get that person to talk to them and trust them, that allows the fraud to continue. >> the federation of state medical board wliss hundreds of posters who have mas kwer raided as doctors in america. >> ms. mace. >> unless it's leonardo dicaprio examining you, go online and make sure your doctor is a licensed physician in your state. >> at number 23, treating the wrong patient. carrie is bleeding three months into her pregnancy. some she fears she's about to lose her unborn baby to a miscarriage. she's waiting in a hospital room when a nurse comes in and ask if your name is carrie. carrie says yes and follows the nurse to a c.t. scan room.
5:06 pm
the nurse tells carrie a doctor wants a scan of her abdomen abdomen and gives her the scan even though she's three months pregnant. >> if you're radiated the abdom abdomen, the baby is going to get radiated. >> the hospital has confused carrie with another patient named a carrie. >> the scan in a pregnant woman will increase the risk that child will get leukemia. at that early stage of gestation, the fetus is also at risk of getting birth defects. >> fortunately, carrie's son nathan is doing just fine. >> how do they confuse patients? >> it often happens with people who have similar names. so especially for common names. jean smith. there may be two or three jane smiths on a common hospital floor. >> before every procedure in the hospital, make sure the staff checks your entire name, your
5:07 pm
date of birth and the bar code on your wristband. at number 22, pharmacy faux poe pas. this woman is 26 weeks pregnant, she picks up medicine and sees the name is wrong. >> came back and looked at the bottle and it wasn't my name. they gave her a prescription of another person. the medicine is a drug that has the potential to terminate pregnancies. >> you never, ever want to give a drug like that to a pregnant patient. >> this is my first child so it's really difficult to deal with. my baby could have deformities. there's a lot to go with it. >> things get hectic behind the prescription counter. phone is ringing, messages,
5:08 pm
patients coming in. pharmacists pull medications from the shelves, you might pull the wrong drug, the wrong strength. we're dealing with a dangerous situation. we don't want to take the wrong medication. >> at neighborhood pharmacies every year, 30 million prescriptions are dispensed improperly. when you're at the pharmacy, open the package and show the medicine to the farmist to make sure it's right and make sure your name is on the label. at number 21, botched plastic surgery. marilyn lees wants to look a little younger, but after eyelid surgery she's unable to fully close her eyes. >> that's how it is. >> living with a mistake is bad enough -- >> can you die from plastic surgery? >> oh, absolutely. >> take the case of this beauty queen, this argentinian model
5:09 pm
wants a bigger butt. >> why? >> there are men out there who like big butts. we are a culture that wants to feel attractive and if that's what makes us feel more attractive, then they want a bigger butt. >> the beauty queen goes in for the operation and then dies five days later. here's where some experts think the surgery goes wrong. whatever doctors inject in her butt to make them bigger, fat, silicone or something else, a piece of it breaks off, tears through the bloodstream, then lodges in our lungs. without blood flow to her lungs, she struggles to breathe. it's called a pulmonary embolism. make sure your surgeon is certified by the american board of plastic surgery. >> at number 20, dosage disasters. movie star dennis quaid's twins
5:10 pm
thomas and zoe develop an infection a few days after they're born. they take a blood thinner called heprin to prepare their request ivs. >> when you have an iv, there's a minuscule dose they put in the iv. >> when the babies get the iv, their blood unexpectedly turns thin as water. >> at one point why they tried to clamp up a wound, blood spurted six feet across the room and splattered on the wall. >> doctors realize someone has given the babies a massive overdose of heparin, 1,000 times more than it's supposed to be. >> they didn't notice that it was the wrong dose. >> here's that overdose happens. >> the adult dose was in a dark blue vile. the pediatric dose was in a light blue vial.
5:11 pm
>> an adult dosage was put where the pediatric dose is usually placed. another nurse grabbed the vial without checking it. >> when you're in the hospital, ask for a daily list of medications and dosages and check them when they arrive. ahead on my list -- you won't believe where this patient ends up after brain surgery. and tools left and forgotten in the worst place possible. i have a cold, and i took nyquil, but i'm still stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels
5:12 pm
speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! trying to find a better job can tlikbe frustrating.gs, so at university of phoenix we're working with a growing list of almost two thousand corporate partners - companies like microsoft, american red cross and adobe - to create options for you. not only that, we're using what we learn from these partners to shape our curriculum, so that when you find the job you want you'll be a perfect fit. let's get to work.
5:13 pm
5:14 pm
>> dosage disasters came in at number 20. at number 19, toxic transplants. joshua hightower needs a new kidney. he's on a list waiting his turn for the life-saving organ. a potential donor dies. joshua gets one of the man's kidneys and instead of getting
5:15 pm
better, he gets sicker. >> he was throwing up, headaches, had the shakes real bad. sleeping a lot. >> within months, joshua is dead at age 18. a doctor tells his mother he died of rabbies. >> and i said what do you mean rabies? like some foreign branch of rabies? like some kind that's uncommon or rare? or the kind that you vaccinate your dog every year for? and he said jennifer, the kind you vaccinate your dog every year for. >> and just how does this teenager get rabies? a virus that's spread by animals. that new kidney he gets is infected for rabies before it gets inside his body. the organ donor habiten by a bat but no one knows it. the virus spreads through the bloodstream. >> no one suspected that this person had rabies. all the organs were transplanted and all the recipients contracted rabies.
5:16 pm
>> reporter: only later did doctors realize the donor had all the symptoms of r oohabies the beginning. >> there are thousands and thousands of potential pathogens that owners could be infected with. testing for rabies is not universally tested for. >> after a transplant, if you get sicker instead of better, ask if the other recipients from the same donor are also sick. early treatment could save your life. at number 18, dumb discharge. james undergoes brain surgery. he goes back to the hospital for more testing. the staples are still fresh in his head when the staff packs him off alone in a taxi cab. >> most patients being discharged from a hospital should not be going home alone in a tax i cab.
5:17 pm
james is so disoriented he doesn't know his own address. >> i was confused. >> stengtherangers find him askr help when the cab dropped him off in an unfamiliar neighborhood. >> it was wet, rainy, cold out. he had bandages and staples in his head still from his surgeries. >> these good samaritans helped james g et home after his careless release. >> a lot of people feel woozy when they leave the hospital. so make sure you have a ride home from someone who know where is you live. >> at number 17, ambulance errors. a lot can go wrong on the way to the hospital. darlene dukes is struggling to breathe. she calls 911 and tells the operat operator where she is. >> 602 wales drive. >> 602 wales drive?
5:18 pm
>> yes. >> ion stead of dispatching an ambulance to wales drive. they send a paramedic to wells street. 27 miles away from darlene. darlene dies from a blood clot, police say. after an ambulance takes more than 45 minutes to find her. >> very, very critical amount of time in terms of the response time necessary to save somebody's life. >> when you call 911, slowly say and spell out the name of the street address. at number 16, lost patients. nursing home patient mary cole turns up missing during a bed check. finding her becomes a man hunt. noted on her missing person poster, she suffers from alzheimer's disease anticipate may be disoriented. her daughter clings to hope and joins the search.
5:19 pm
>> we gave her morning until pitch dark. >> four days goes by before she's found inside the nursing home, locked in a storage closet. >> i believed and trusted them a when they said we searched every room. we moved furniture. it was a lie. >> mary wandered into that closet and got trapped. >> my mom suffered for four days and there's no excuse for it. >> 1 in 5 nursing home patients is prone to wandering. if your loved one sometimes wanders, consider getting them a gps bracelet that tracks their every move. at number 15, surgical souvenirs. nelson bailey comes out of surgery with a sponge left in
5:20 pm
his abdomen. a foot long by a foot long. >> the medical report shows that it was rotting. it created per forrations in my intestines. >> here's how a sponge can get left behind by mistake. >> there's often blood, there's tissue. it's very difficult to see. and sometimes sponges are tucked under an organ inside you. they're not in clear view but they're soaking up some fluid or blood. >> take a look at this similar mistake. that's a six-inch clamp. and this is a 13-inch retractor. nurses are supposed to keep track of how many tools go inside you and make sure the same number come out. >> sometimes the initial count going in is wrong, their count going out is wrong and mistakes happen. >> something gets left behind in as many as 2 out of every 10,000 surgerie surgeries. if you have unexpected fever,
5:21 pm
pain or swelling after surgery, ask if you might have a surgical memento buried within. ahead on my list, air keeps us alive. so how does it kill this young man? and a mix-up at the maternity ward that leaves moms bonding with the wrong baby. and i'm thinking, "shouldn't you have more energy than me? you're, like, eight!" [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more by blocking some of the fat you eat. simple. effective. advantage: mom. let's fight fat with alli. learn more, lose more at letsfightfat.com.
5:22 pm
learn more, lose more capella university understands nurses are dealing with a than wider range of issues. and there are ever-changing regulations. when you see these challenges, do you want to back away or take charge? with a degree in the field of healthcare or nursing from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to advance your career while making a difference in the lives of patients. let's get started at capella.edu. we don't let frequent heartburn come between us and what we love. so if you're one of them people who gets heartburn and then treats day after day... block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn.
5:23 pm
5:24 pm
5:25 pm
surgical souvenirs came in at number 15. number 14, baby switcheroo. >> oh, my god. >> what? >> wrong baby. >> pamela garcia is the victim of a make y up. in the nursery he needs to eat and the hospital worker hands the baby over to a stranger with the same last name. the wrong mother breast feeds moni monica's baby. >> it's hard for me to accept that, you know, my child has been with somebody that i don't even know. >> i would like to think i would know if someone brought me a baby that wasn't mine. >> you might, you might not. most babies look pretty similar.
5:26 pm
they're all just kind of cute little cheeky things. they're not easy to distinguish from one another. especially if you' only seen it once or twice. >> a loving mother will love the baby that she's brought. >> when a nurse hands you your baby, ask the nurse to match your baby's i.d. band with yours. at number 13, air bubbles in blood. after weeks in the hospital, 19-year-old blake fout is excited to be going home. before he can leave, blake has to do just one last thing. have a central line in his chest removed. while he's sitting upright, a nurse removes the tube and then seals it with gauze. >> you could hear popping from the central line site and it was just sucking air right into the vessels. >> it's called an air embolism
5:27 pm
and that air is killing blake. >> the air was cutting off the blood supply to his lungs and to his later, heart and to his kidd brain. >> blake should have been lying down and the nurse should have sealed the hole airtight with vas te vaseline. this doctor is blake's mother. she's only a medical student at the time of the mistake and doesn't know how to stop it. she begs the staff to do something but no one calls for a doctor until it's too late. >> we went from planning a surprise party to planning a funeral. what i went to do is wake my daughter up and tell her her brother was not coming home ever.
5:28 pm
and i just -- it was horrible. >> while there's no national figure, you should know a report looking at just one hospital's icu finds improperly removed central lines caused 10 air embolisms a year. if you have a central line in you, ask how you should be positioned wh ent eed when the out. >> at number 12, misdiagnosed. morgan mccracken gets socked in the head with a baseball. mom and dad ice the bump down. the 7-year-old seems fine until two nights later when she cries out for help. >> mom, mom, my head, it's hurting. she was holding it. my head is hurting, my head is hurting. >> the mccrackens rushmore ggano the hospital. >> we couldn't get there fast enough. >> a doctor says don't worry.
5:29 pm
>> it's late, she's tired. she probably has a touch of the flu. >> a gut feeling tells them the doctor has the diagnosis wrong. >> they asked for a ct scan of her h ed. but the doctor won't listen. >> what's the consequences of a doctor not listening to you? >> they're failing to register and therefore look on your body for the first clues of that and begin to order the right tests. >> after hours of begging, the doctor finally does listen and orders a ct scan. here's what he missed a blood clot inside morgan'ssurgery sav. one out of the 10 diagnoses you receive from a doctor might be wrong. like morgan's parents, you should trust your instincts. if a diagnosis doesn't sound right to you, get a second
5:30 pm
opinion. at number 11, transfusion confusion. blake oliver feels sharp pain in his stomach. he goes to the hospital. he needs surgery and a blood transfusion. the new blood has to match his blood. >> some people are o type blood, some people are a type blood, some people are b type blood. you can't transfuse the different type blood because your bod interprets it as an invading bacteria. >> to know blake's blood type his blood needs to be drawn and tested. instead, a mistake is done on his hospital's roommate. >> the roommate's blood listed a positive was listed blake oliver and given to him. >> the a type blood mixes with blake's o-type blood. >> it can cause the blood cells to rupture. and when they rupture, they can clog up your organs, it's called
5:31 pm
a hemolytic reaction. >> that new blood kills blake. >> it was just the most awful, ridiculous scenario in that it could have been 100% prevented. >> listen carefully. 1 out of every 19,000 units of blood given is a mismatch. know your blood type so if you gee getting blood, you can check the bag to make sure it's a match. >> at number 10, getting burned. this expects his heart bypass to go smoothly. >> no big deal. i want to go home the same day. >> monitoring cables are snaked through his heart, but the monitor malfunctions and the cables get so hot, the inside of his heart is cooked. the damage, irreparable, and he has to get a new heart.
5:32 pm
rocky rockenbach also gets burned in the hospital when doctors turn his throat into a blow torch. here's how it happens, during surgery a balloon is inflated to block anaesthesia gases in his lungs from rising up. a surgeon's laser punctures a hole in the balloon. the doctor continues, the laser's heat sparks the gases and spifire explodes. now rocky has to breathe with a plastic tube. >> how can a hospital burn a patient in a surgery? >> these accidents usually occur because of multiple errors that occur in setting up for the operation. because there's a lot of equipment is that involves electricity, that involves the use of gases and other things that are flammable. these are terrible errors. >> 650 surgical fires break out every year in u.s. operating
5:33 pm
rooms. lasers and cables can generate a lot of heat. so ask if your surgery will use them and how you can be protected. >> ahead on our list, we all know our left from our right, soso how does this boy's surgeon get so confused? >> and a routine test goes wrong and leaves patients partially bald. hings -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.
5:34 pm
"are you a cool mom?" i'm gonna find out. [ female announcer ] swiffer wetjet's pads are better than ever.
5:35 pm
now they have the scrubbing power of mr. clean magic eraser so you don't have to get down on your hands and knees to scrub away tough, dried-on stains. hey, do you guys think i'm "momtacular" or "momtrocious"? ♪ [ female announcer ] swiffer. now with the scrubbing power of mr. clean magic eraser. [ male announcer ] when diarrhea hits, kaopectate stops it fast. powerful liquid relief speeds to the source. fast! [ male announcer ] stop the uh-oh fast with kaopectate.
5:36 pm
5:37 pm
>> leaders in ohio are speaking out, promising to keep the community updated on a very public rape case involving two members of the high school football team. the two 126-year-old footba6-ye players are charged with raping a 16-year-old girl. it took place at several parties over the course of the night. rallies today protests the town's handling of the case. after hours of negotiations, police say a suspect open fired on officers. officers shot and kpiled t kill gunman. they found a woman and a man dead in the house. aurora is the same denver suburb where a gunman open fired during the new batman movie last summer, killing 12 people.
5:38 pm
i'm deb feyerick. keeping you informed. cnn, the most trusted name in news. getting burned came in at number 10. at number 9, look alike tubes. alicia coleman born three months premature. a disease all but destroys her intestines. doctors insert a feeding tube into her stomach and a central line tube into her vein. one day alicia's mother drops her off at a medical day care center and heads to work. >> i handed her at 8:17 and got a call at 9:20, her medication had been administered long. >> the tubes look alike.
5:39 pm
>> medicine meant for her stomach was inserted into her vein. her heart stops and she dies. >> she had to go through it alone and i wasn't there. >> is it easy to confuse tubes? >> we should be very cautious. >> unfortunately, people get rushed, people cut corner and when that happens, tragic things can happen. 16% of doctors in a survey say tube mix-ups happen at their hospitals. so the lesson here is when you have tubes in you, ask the staff to trace the tubes back to the point of origin so the right medicine goes to the right place. at number eight, biopsy blunder. something unusual turns up in 35-year-old derry's breast.
5:40 pm
is it cancer? doctors do a biopsy. her diagnosis, positive, invasive lobular carcinoma. the single mom has breast cancer. she gets a second opinion. two more experts look at her lab work and they agree. derry decides she has to be aggressive to save her life. she has surgery to remove both her breasts. and then weeks later, a bombshell admission by her doctors. >> they told me basically, you didn't have cancer and you never did. what makes doctors think she's sick? that biopsy actually belongs to someone else. a health department investigation says the worker takes another worker's tissue and puts it inside a container labelled with darrie's
5:41 pm
identification. >> something should have been done to tell me that there wasn't anything wrong with me before i had a radical double mastectomy. >> you make the diagnosis with the biopsy and for sure there could be a domino or butterfly effect that occurs from having a mistake in that initial biopsy where everybody starts to make a decision based on that initial biopsy or error. >> 1 out of 1,000 lab specimens is mislabelled. if you surgeon, radiologist and pathologist don't always agree on your results, ask if ushtd repeat the test or get another opinion. at number seven, having the wrong baby. caroline and shawn savage want a baby after four misteenagers. they turn to a fertility lab for help. the couple thinks their embryos are placed in carolyn's uterus, until 10 days later when the lab calls with unbelievable news. >> we were pregnant, but at the
5:42 pm
same time, that they had transferred another couple's embryos to caroline. >> the baby growing inside caroline doesn't belong to her. it actually belongs to this woman, who has the same last night, shannon savage. >> i'm thinking this woman has to be a basket case. to find out she's pregnant, oh, by the way, with snb else's kid. >> here's how the embryos wind up in the wrong womb. to locate where the embryos are stored, a lab worker by mistake uses schaap nonsavage's paper work instead of carolyn's savages. they're placed on a petrie dish. carolyn has baby logan and gives it up to his real parents. >> to think that a woman carried someone else's baby, albeit by
5:43 pm
accident and then had to hand that child over to that couple, not achieving her own pregnancy, first of all, she's an amazing woman. and secondly, it's a tragedy. >> happily, shawn and carolyn recently had twins, isabel la and reagan with the help of a surrogate. mistakes like this are exceedingly rare, but they do happen. nine months in the wrong mom is no way to have a baby. so if you're getting fertility treatment, make sure the clinic is accredited by the college of american pathologists. at numb . at number six, operating on the wrong body part. >> jesse matlock has a wandering right eye. the 3-year-old needs surgery to have it nixed. he goes in for the operation and the surgeon cuts into the left eye instead of the right. >> my husband and i were in awe. can you repeat that again? she said frankly, i lost assistance of direction. they messed up and did this
5:44 pm
guy a eye and then did this eye. >> surgeons are supposed to mark the area. >> they place drapes. when you have draping that obscures the mark. >> in the u.s., seven patients every day suffer body part mix-ups. >> just before surgery, make sure you confirm with the nurse and surgeon the correct body part and side of your operation and don't be shy about doing it. at number five, radical radiation. this isn't a bad hair cut, it's the damage done by too much radiation. may kel hoyser goes in for a ct scan of his head. clumps of hair fall out. suzanne sloan, same thing. and same for donald bigels. >> i had a perfect ring around my head. >> here's how their hair falls
5:45 pm
out. the hospitals program the ct scanner wrong and repeatedly scan them with monster doses of radiation. michael gets eight times the allowable dose. >> the well publicized images that we saw of patients who got ct scans of their brain who had hair loss in a very clear distribution, that was the area with a lot of repettive images where the doses got up very high. basically, the hair cells got destroyed by the radiation. >> the fallout from that dangerously high amount of radiation wasn't just hair loss. donald, michael and suzanne have to worry that all that radiation could give them cancer. if possible, instead of a ct scan, get an ultrasound or an mri, because they have no radiation at all. still ahead on my list, metal and an mri are a bad combination. and an unbelievably long e.r. wait cost this toddler her limbs.
5:46 pm
the one call you can make to speed things up during an emergency. ♪
5:47 pm
[ male announcer ] jill and her mouth have lived a great life. but she has some dental issues she's not happy about. so i introduced jill to crest pro-health for life. selected for people over 50. pro-health for life is a toothpaste that defends against tender, inflamed gums, sensitivity and weak enamel. conditions people over 50 experience. crest pro-health for life. so jill can keep living the good life. crest. life opens up when you do.
5:48 pm
5:49 pm
radical radiation made our list at number five. at number four, infection infestation. sky diver josh naham parachutes to earth.
5:50 pm
he lands badly. he's on the mend in the hospital when he catches an infectious from the hospital. >> nobody ever thinks they're going to go into a hospital only to be made more ill. >> doctors are powerless to fight the bacteria raging through josh's body. >> what we're seeing now and it's really concerning is there's a growing list of gram negative bacteria there are resistant to many, if not most antibiotics and we have no drugs to treat these patients with. >> josh dies at 27. >> one patient may have an infectious and a nurse or doctor is caring for both of them. i touch them and my hands get contaminated.
5:51 pm
i then don't wash my hands or go and talk to or examine the second patient. i introduce the inif he recollects -- infectious into that second patient. we're a vector introducing harm rather than protecting patients. >> another way, a needle pierces dirty skin. >> your skin is an amazing protection from bacteria. >> hospitals kill 100,000 people a year with these infections. it may be uncomfortable to ask, but make sure doctors and nurses wash their hands before they touch you, even if they're wearing gloves. at number three, metal in the mri room. >> 6-year-old michael has brain cancer. he's getting an mri. >> an mri machine is a very large, very, very powerful magnet. a hospital worker walks into the
5:52 pm
room carrying a metal oxygen tank. the oxygen tank flies out of the worker's hands, shoots across the room, strikes michael in the head and the little boy dies. take a look at this video researchers make after michael's death. it shows just how fast that oxygen tank kills him. while this mistake is relatively unusual, reports to the u.s. food and drug administration reveal additional cases. when you're getting an mri, make sure there's no metal on or around you. at number two, the e.r. waiting game. 2-year-old malia jefrs has a 101 dgs fever. a bruise on her cheek the size of a marble, trouble walking. her patients rush her to the emergency room. a nurse says it's a virus and tells the family to wait.
5:53 pm
so they do. for nearly five hours. malia's fever climbs higher, her bruise gets bigger. she can't even stand up. mom and dad ask for help again and again but the hospital says keep waiting until finally her father barrels past the nurse's station into the e.r. and begs. the real diagnosis -- shameful. a flesh-eating bacteria is rapidly spreading through the toddler's tiny body. >> any break of the skin can become infected. if you're unlucky enough to get a virulent strain of bacteria and gets into her bloodstream, it can kill her. they missed the fact that she was desperately ill. >> to save malia's life, doctors
5:54 pm
have to amputate her entire left hand, fingers on her right and both her legs. >> is it always obvious who should come first in an emergency room? >> you can't always tell when someone really needs to be seen right away. and who can afford to sit and wait, even if it ruins their day. >> e.r. wait times are longer than ever. you can expect to wait on average a gruelling four hours and seven minutes. here's a tip. doctors listen to other doctors. so when you're on your way to the hospital, call your physician and ask them to call the emergency room so they know you're on your way and it's serious. still ahead, it just goes on and on. and you're screaming inside your head. >> the most shocking medical mistake on my list. [ male announcer ] truth is theraflu doesn't treat your cough. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus severe cold and flu
5:55 pm
fights your worst flu symptoms, plus that cough. [ sighs ] thanks!... [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth! [ sighs ] thanks!... [ male announcer ] you're welcome. ...so as you can see, geico's customer satisfaction is at 97%. mmmm tasty. and cut! very good. people are always asking me how we make these geico adverts. so we're taking you behind the scenes. this coffee cup, for example, is computer animated. it's not real. geico's customer satisfaction is quite real though. this computer-animated coffee tastes dreadful. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 % or more on car insurance. someone get me a latte will ya, please? [ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than leading sonic technology brushes for a superior clean.
5:56 pm
oral-b power brushes. go to oralb.com for the latest offers.
5:57 pm
5:58 pm
we've seen doctors with dirty hands a freak mri accident and now we're at the end of my list of 25 shocking medical mistakes. the e.r. waiting game came in at number two. and at a shocking number one,
5:59 pm
waking up during surgery. you go in, you go under. that's the way surgery is supposed to go. but it doesn't always happen that way. >> there was a pain. there was a pain that you can not deal with. >> it just goes on and on and you're screaming inside your head. >> they're op the operating table. paraly paralyzed. they feel every poke, every prod, every gut. >> please just knock me out. just knock me out. let somebody know that this hurts so bad. >> their nightmare is called anaesthesia awareness. your muscles are paralyzed and your brain is unconscious, but without adequate anaesthesia, your brain c

267 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on